I'm damn sure they look at the numbers of mounts/pets being sold every release and did the math. And the math most likely just simply says its not more or equal to the amount they gain from subscriptions. 100% of players would need to purchase 15 dollars worth of mounts/pet each month or else they'd have to do some serious layoffs.

I mean.... like. What is something that everyone wants to buy for real cash? : / I just can't think of anything. F2P works for things like LoL because they went in with F2P in mind and their company is being held afloat by F2P purchases. WoW is being held afloat by the mandatory 15 dollar fee (plus faction/appearance/name services and the pet store) and going F2P means they have to make just as much cash or more to not go under.

Blizz has also said that they want to know if F2P is something that works longterm. There were some theories how F2P can only last so many years before everyone who wis going to buy anything owns everything there is to purchase. I know they don't want to go into F2P until they are absolutely sure everything will work out alright.

I think you have the bolded part wrong ... Blizzard is able to invest in other stuff like Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, high quality cinematics, fixing B2P games/balancing, etc. by the $15/month fee. I fully believe WoW could survive on xpac fees alone; moreso if they hit the 1/yr cycle they've wished to do for many years. Looks close this year. They could also decide to not charge for xpacs, to prevent the barrier and keep the sub fee.

I don't see them changing their model unless hearthstone and heroes creates a steady income. Then and only then (multiple profitable F2P games working for them), we may see WoW go F2P to attract all the people who used to play, which if we believe their claims, that would be around 20-30 million ex-subscribers.

There is something people forget as well. A well designed F2P has the ability to sell the items you buy in game. We've seen this tested before on one of the items (guardian cub mentioned above?). What this does is create 'whales' who have tons of expendable income and want to support the product they love. This happens in all the F2P models, but SWtOR with the cartel packs and unlocks are a great proof of how well that works for profit. SWtOR is a good example of how to do the in game store, and an example of how not to do restrictions (though it keeps getting less restrictive).

All Blizz needs to do is make a majority of the mounts and pets (and whatever other in game items they'll offer) sellable on the AH ... or able to buy credits and offer it for gold like Rift does (I think). What that does is allow people with in game currency equal opportunity to anything that people with lots of real life money do. It can actually be more profitable than a flat $15/mo. Some people spend $100s a month.

F2P does need a constant cycle of stuff available. It needs to be high quality (value). It needs to be desirable. Some niche, but mostly mass appeal. Transmog could be taken a step further; since they claim they can't implement dyes; they could simply recolor gear and put it up in the store for a reasonable price; a profitable substitute (that will attract forum rage, but what doesn't these days?).

I really think it has a good shot at working better in WoW than any other game; I know a lot of people who are unhappy enough for various reasons to not pay for a sub, but would play if it didn't have a sub; that in turn fills the world up more, atmosphere, full servers, more people spending money on the AH supporting the whales supporting the game.

People love being negative and hateful; but it doesn't have to be that bad. Blizz isn't EA after all

RAF and TCG items are already P2W. And I don't think Blizzard will ever let WoW become F2P simply because the subscription cost is very low compared to how much entertainment you get out of it. It's only a bit more expensive than Netflix, and it's cheaper than Spotify.

If Diablo3 is any indication of how far Blizzard is willing to go for a couple more dollars, F2P WoW is not something that anyone should be looking forward to.

Not sure I agree here. Diablo 3 has no revenue stream aside from buying the game and expansions, adding the rmah gave an additional revenue stream and tried something new. Without the rmah d3 is just a 1 time blizzard payment...Wow on their other hand is paid monthly and includes additional paid services for the revenue stream. So based on your thoughts, Wow is the game that shows how greedy they can get.

It probably wouldn't be "P2W" at all, as your biased title suggests.
It would probably be pay to SKIP, not to "win". For example: You could pay to boost a char to 90 but you can't buy any gear.
And if you enjoy leveling, awesome, you save 15$ or w/e and still get to do content you enjoy.

If World of Warcraft became F2P the old people who bought the game would leave and people who enjoyed playing F2P would join it's simple, A WoW play who has been playing for years is going to play it F2P I most certainly will NOT.

No, they sell gear that is one or tiers behind, not the most powerful gear. It's still pay to win because it offers for money an advantage that players who don't pay have to grind it themselves over a long time

For starters I hope it never goes free to play, as those game suck (there isn't one F2P game that hooks you, they are just good for cheap ass people, which this forum is full off), if it did, they wouldn't sell current gear epics, catch up gear probably.

Paying real money to give yourself advantages in a game. Items with stats, bigger inventory, faster mounts, etc, basically anything that gives you an advantage over players that don't buy it and prefer to grind it themselves, which often takes a very long time in order to motivate players to prefer buying it instead of working for it in the game, so they give money to the developer.

I think if wow went free to play it would end up like one of my once favorite mmo's dcuo

In dcuo they had a subscription model evertything was good dlc packs came out the game was balanced

Then the casuals complained and how did they respond? Well they put in Replay badges(Being able to reset a raid).
This pretty much killed the guild raiding atmosphere if your guild made it through the replay badge drought then goddamn u must love the game

Replay badges also applied to pvp rewards and dungeons to. Even though the game is still going It is'nt the same since my guild mates stopped playing

Could we ever trust a company like blizzard being able to handle F2P correctly?

As much as I like to crap on Blizzard for certain things, I think they'd handle f2p fairly well. They've shown that they are willing to create very nice cosmetic pieces to encourage people to use their current cash shop and I think that would continue. The only place I think they would over reach is perhaps putting beta testing raids behind a paywall. Essentially making that portion of beta testing part of a premium member arrangement forcing top end raiders to pay out the nose to get a head start on things. Blizzard probably has a good handle on how much professional raid groups are paid and should be able to second guess how elastic that price point would be.

I imagine they'd put new character skins in the cash shop, create premium servers, let premium accounts have a broader range of transmog options. Things like that.

Yes, WOW is definitely pay 2 win right now.. They are so greedy for making us pay for expansions to get more powerful. I should be able to stay in Vanilla and be as strong as those cheaters who paid to play in Pandaran raids.

This guy just won the thread. Lets all march on Blizzard HQ and demand justice!